State high court rejects challenge to traffic-light camera

Updated 6:49 am, Friday, June 6, 2014

A red light camera at the corners of Mowry Ave and Fremont Blvd in Fremont California is aimed at east bound traffic on Mowry Saturday, February 4, 2012.

A red light camera at the corners of Mowry Ave and Fremont Blvd in Fremont California is aimed at east bound traffic on Mowry Saturday, February 4, 2012.

Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle

State high court rejects challenge to traffic-light camera

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If you're caught on camera running a red light, and a police officer testifies that the system was working, you'll have to pay up - upwards of $400, in fact - the state's highest court said Thursday.

In a unanimous ruling, the California Supreme Court upheld the widely used automatic traffic enforcement systems and rejected a motorist's demand for testimony by the manufacturer about the cameras' operations and reliability.

"We have long approved the substantive use of photographs as essentially a 'silent witness' to the content," Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said in the court's decision. She said photos, and computer-generated images like those the cameras produce, are presumed accurate without the need for expert testimony about how the machines work - although prosecutors must still prove that a defendant was shown to be breaking the law.

A defense lawyer in the case had urged the court to require that camera companies, which have lucrative contracts with many California cities, send a representative to traffic court and dispel public distrust of the system. Cantil-Sakauye said the defense was seeking a "special rule for red-light cameras," which she rejected.

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State lawmakers sought to allay public mistrust in 2004 by banning contracts that gave the companies a percentage of the traffic fines or revenue the machines generated. The company in Thursday's case, Redflex Traffic Systems, has cameras in more than 240 communities nationwide, 67 of them in California, according to court records.

A Redflex camera caught Carmen Goldsmith of Los Angeles driving past a red light in suburban Inglewood at 53 mph in March 2009, the court said. One photo showed her entering the intersection, a second showed her in the intersection and a third showed her license plate. A policeman described how the system worked and identified Goldsmith as the driver, and a judge refused to require testimony by Redflex. Goldsmith was convicted and fined $436.

Goldsmith's lawyers argued in their appeal that the traffic court system is stacked against the defense, and that digital camera images, in particular, can be altered in ways that are hard to detect.

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But Cantil-Sakauye said traffic defendants have the same rights as other criminal defendants to call witnesses, present evidence and cross-examine prosecution witnesses. She said there was no evidence of altered photos in this case, and no need to require special guarantees of accuracy for red-light cameras.

While the prosecution must present evidence from police or other witnesses in support of the photos, "no elaborate showing of accuracy is required," the chief justice said.

John Jackman, a lawyer for Goldsmith, said the defense was disappointed by the outcome but pleased that the court had set some ground rules.

Many Californians are "troubled by the red-light camera system, and don't have a sense of being able to defend themselves," Jackman said. "We were never trying to get rid of red-light tickets, just trying to make sure that all the computer equipment was working properly."